aircraft construction

[Rmack]

Is it possible to build an aircraft with only the fourth tier aircraft opened?  I only see a round air intake, and not the side mounted one that I see in Scott Manley's how-to vid.

And the engine is much smaller, also.

[Reactordrone]

The aircraft parts in the tech tree have been moved around in recent versions (especially with the introduction of the juno) but it should still be possible to make an early tech aircraft, you just won't be able to use the same parts from an old video.

Edited May 23, 2016 by Reactordrone

[Alshain]

It's absolutely possible to build a working aircraft by the 4th tier.  This one flies beautifully in 1.0.5.

[Rmack]

A tail dragger?  OK.

How do you get that high wing config?  and how do you side mount engines?  I can see any of that.

OK, I got the engines, still having probs with the wing

[Rmack]

Also, I don't seem to have those wing struts available anywhere.

[Reactordrone]

3 hours ago, Rmack said:

Also, I don't seem to have those wing struts available anywhere.

They're in general construction, just above your fourth tier aircraft node.

[Plusck]

4 hours ago, Rmack said:

A tail dragger?  OK.

How do you get that high wing config?  and how do you side mount engines?  I can see any of that.

OK, I got the engines, still having probs with the wing

For the wing, just mount it symmetrically on the side then use the offset/reposition tool to move it up on top. You'll probably have to disable snap to get it right.

3 hours ago, Rmack said:

Also, I don't seem to have those wing struts available anywhere.

They're standard struts, available among the tier-4 General Construction parts (structural build tab in the editor)

[bewing]

This one is even more basic, and flies nicely. You can (and should) replace the girders with an empty fuel tank, or one or two SciJrs. The main fuel tank is only half-filled, to keep the weight down.

And, in fact, the type B wing connector probably works better than these swept wings.

Edited May 23, 2016 by bewing

[Alshain]

14 hours ago, Rmack said:

A tail dragger?  OK.

How do you get that high wing config?  and how do you side mount engines?  I can see any of that.

OK, I got the engines, still having probs with the wing

It doesn't have to be a taildragger, that was just a personal choice, I have plenty of tricycle planes, I wanted something different.  Personally I think taildraggers are a little easier on the bumpy tier 1 runway.

The wings are a little tricky but you should be able to get them there, using angle snap, move the mouse up to the top of the fuselage and there should be a point where they appear together as you see there.  Those wings are 2-piece, again mostly just for appearances.  You have to attach each pair separately and use the move and rotate gizmos to get it just right.

14 hours ago, Rmack said:

Also, I don't seem to have those wing struts available anywhere.

Those are just plain struts, and they aren't necessary, they are only there for visual appearances.  That small of a wing is not going to flex.

 

One other note, if you are playing in 1.1 I've recently discovered that it helps with the awful wheels if you rotate the plane back the way it would sit on the runway (as you see in the picture, grab the root part with the rotate gizmo) and afterward make your front wheels perfectly perpendicular to the ground.  The plane gets down the runway a bit better that way.  If you make them perpendicular to the ground while the plane's tail is in it's upward position, it doesn't drive right.  (But don't expect miracles, they still won't drive right in 1.1, no matter what you do).

Edited May 23, 2016 by Alshain

[Mister Spock]

I've just spent 3 hours trying, without success, to get a tier-4 aircraft off the ground.  I got the CoL right behind the CoM, but not overlapping it; maybe not close enough?  I couldn't get it to do a straight roll until I gave up on a tricycle design and went with 4 wheels.  Now I can do a takeoff roll, but I can't get her in the air.  I tried to make it a bit of a tail-dragger; still no luck getting her airborne.  I tried adding more engines, but that just made things worse.  Gah!  It seems every time I start a new career and make the mistake of investing in aircraft, I regret it.  All those years of flight-simming don't help at all.

What should my target TWR be?  Does it have to be over 1.0, as is the case with a rocket? 

Can anyone post a .craft file (of a tier-4 aircraft, stock parts) or two?  

Edited May 23, 2016 by Mister Spock

[AeroGav]

51 minutes ago, Mister Spock said:

I've just spent 3 hours trying, without success, to get a tier-4 aircraft off the ground.  I got the CoL right behind the CoM, but not overlapping it; maybe not close enough?  I couldn't get it to do a straight roll until I gave up on a tricycle design and went with 4 wheels.  Now I can do a takeoff roll, but I can't get her in the air.  I tried to make it a bit of a tail-dragger; still no luck getting her airborne.  I tried adding more engines, but that just made things worse.  Gah!  It seems every time I start a new career and make the mistake of investing in aircraft, I regret it.  All those years of flight-simming don't help at all.

What should my target TWR be?  Does it have to be over 1.0, as is the case with a rocket? 

Can anyone post a .craft file (of a tier-4 aircraft, stock parts) or two?  

Built this in under 10 minutes.  It takes off and lands.  Could do with some ailerons but it's past my bedtime already.  

https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/simple-bird

edit - it's very nose heavy, like i said could do with some optimising.   Press the Space Bar to start both engines, Z to throttle to 100% and hold down the up arrow key to lift off - about 30m/s.   Cannot stall, max pitch it will give you is about 12 deg.   You can see how much nose up pitch trim i had set so it would hold level filght hands off.

 

edit 2 - if you can't make this fly, then  you have a mod like FAR raising takeoff/landing speeds beyond what the weakest landing gear can support.  I suspect if your own creations aren't controllable you might be getting part misalignment in vehicle editor - you know that when attaching critical items like gear, you should always go into angle snap mode and then press F to get Absolute rotation mode rahter then relative, then move the part 1 notch in each rotation axis then back to original position again - this ensures the gear are pointing dead straight ahead.

Edited May 23, 2016 by AeroGav

[Rmack]

Finally got one that flew!  Looks like a lear jet with twin rear engines between the horizontal stabilizers and the vertical stab.

Would a joystick work with this game?  I've got an old Saitek X45.  Would it help make the planes a little easier to control?

[Mister Spock]

2 hours ago, AeroGav said:

Built this in under 10 minutes.  It takes off and lands.  Could do with some ailerons but it's past my bedtime already.  

https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/simple-bird

edit - it's very nose heavy, like i said could do with some optimising.   Press the Space Bar to start both engines, Z to throttle to 100% and hold down the up arrow key to lift off - about 30m/s.   Cannot stall, max pitch it will give you is about 12 deg.   You can see how much nose up pitch trim i had set so it would hold level filght hands off.

edit 2 - you know that when attaching critical items like gear, you should always go into angle snap mode and then press F to get Absolute rotation mode rahter then relative, then move the part 1 notch in each rotation axis then back to original position again - this ensures the gear are pointing dead straight ahead.

Thanks for taking the time to do this.  I gave it a spin, and easily took off and flew it to 10,500 meters altitude, then had fun landing nicely back at KSC (though I missed the runway).  And yeah, I'm using stock aero, not FAR.  So ok, it's not my flying skills, it's my design!  (As it happens, I have a contract (for the historic missions pack) to fly to 10,000 meters and exceed Mach 1, but I couldn't get the simple bird to go nearly that fast.   Also, interestingly at one point the batteries got low but then somehow recharged.  Some mod gave me a warning message: maybe it was Kerbalism?)

So I compared your design to mine.  Your CoT was quite a bit behind the CoM, but the plane still flew.  (I tried to get my CoT right behind my CoM, and my plane didn't fly.) Yes, a big problem is my landing gear.  Gear do give me fits.  I think my trouble is that I'm always trying to attach the fixed gear symetrically to a cylindrical surface, like the cockpit.  So by default they don't point straight.  Your gear were attached to the bottom of the flat wing, which makes them much easier to point straight.  Smart design.  But what do you do if you want to put gear under a cylinder?  .  

[Reactordrone]

1 hour ago, Mister Spock said:

Thanks for taking the time to do this.  I gave it a spin, and easily took off and flew it to 10,500 meters altitude, then had fun landing nicely back at KSC (though I missed the runway).  And yeah, I'm using stock aero, not FAR.  So ok, it's not my flying skills, it's my design!  (As it happens, I have a contract (for the historic missions pack) to fly to 10,000 meters and exceed Mach 1, but I couldn't get the simple bird to go nearly that fast.   Also, interestingly at one point the batteries got low but then somehow recharged.  Some mod gave me a warning message: maybe it was Kerbalism?)

 

Try adding more engines. I got a 4 engined Juno powered plane up to 323m/s at 1000m yesterday. You could also try adding a flea solid booster for that extra kick (just watch out for CG changes when the fuel is expended).

[bewing]

5 hours ago, Mister Spock said:

Can anyone post a .craft file (of a tier-4 aircraft, stock parts) or two?

OK, here's a couple. Take off and land at a little over 30 m/s for both versions.

One engine version: http://www.virtualrealitytoursllc.com/pix/basic_jet.craft

Three engine version (if you want to play with some speed and altitude): http://www.virtualrealitytoursllc.com/pix/3_juno.craft

urs ago, Mister Spock said:

But what do you do if you want to put gear under a cylinder?

If you want to attach a pair of landing gear to the sides of a cylinder, you have to attach them at the midline with angle-snap turned on. Then you can sometimes use the "move" tool to move them around -- but sometimes that doesn't work.

If you want to attach a single gear to the bottom of some slanted surface, then use the rotate tool to make it vertical again after you have attached it.

Edited May 24, 2016 by bewing

[AeroGav]

2 hours ago, Mister Spock said:

Thanks for taking the time to do this.  I gave it a spin, and easily took off and flew it to 10,500 meters altitude, then had fun landing nicely back at KSC (though I missed the runway).  And yeah, I'm using stock aero, not FAR.  So ok, it's not my flying skills, it's my design!  (As it happens, I have a contract (for the historic missions pack) to fly to 10,000 meters and exceed Mach 1, but I couldn't get the simple bird to go nearly that fast.   Also, interestingly at one point the batteries got low but then somehow recharged.  Some mod gave me a warning message: maybe it was Kerbalism?)

So I compared your design to mine.  Your CoT was quite a bit behind the CoM, but the plane still flew.  (I tried to get my CoT right behind my CoM, and my plane didn't fly.) Yes, a big problem is my landing gear.  Gear do give me fits.  I think my trouble is that I'm always trying to attach the fixed gear symetrically to a cylindrical surface, like the cockpit.  So by default they don't point straight.  Your gear were attached to the bottom of the flat wing, which makes them much easier to point straight.  Smart design.  But what do you do if you want to put gear under a cylinder?  .  

Glad it's working.   The gear are actually attached to the rearmost of the 2 size 0 fuel tanks that form the engine nacelle. I  had to use rotate tool with angle snap turned on and "Absolute" mode set (F key) rather than "Local"  to get them straight.   Those basic gear never attach straight without tweaking no matter what you put them on.

There are only two pieces the fuselage, the cockpit and the tailcone, both of which are conical. The wings are attached to the tailcone and acquire a sweep back as a result.  The engine nacelles attach to the wing so also end up not straight by default - they end up toeing outwards .  Used the rotate in absolute with angle snap to fix it.     Something you might need to know if you want to double up on the engines.   I've had a juno plane cruise at 15km and mach 1.3 but it did have 14 engines and twice that wing span, and it was near the end of a polar survey mission so not much fuel left !

Those canards are massive for a plane that size so they can force the nose up despite the CG.

Also I left the rear of the two fuel tanks empty because they are behind the cg. The plane is sufficiently nose heavy to not be unstable with them full, but you would get a slight shift as their fuel burned off .

[Val]

16 hours ago, Mister Spock said:

Can anyone post a .craft file (of a tier-4 aircraft, stock parts) or two?  

Here's another.

[Mister Spock]

Thanks, AeroGav and Val.  I'll play around more.  Now my goal is to get one of these early-game birds to Mach 1.

[Alshain]

21 hours ago, Rmack said:

Finally got one that flew!  Looks like a lear jet with twin rear engines between the horizontal stabilizers and the vertical stab.

Would a joystick work with this game?  I've got an old Saitek X45.  Would it help make the planes a little easier to control?

Goodness yes!  I hate flying with the keyboard.  Heck, a XBox gamepad is better.

5 hours ago, Mister Spock said:

Thanks, AeroGav and Val.  I'll play around more.  Now my goal is to get one of these early-game birds to Mach 1.

This is the taildragger pictured above.  It will not go Mach 1.  Keep in mind, in current versions of KSP, speed is more limited by engine choice.  While it might be possible to get a Tier 4 to Mach 1, maybe by diving at full speed, the engines performance will wane the faster you go, as will the intake performance and drag.  It's purposely designed to prevent you from doing that now, you can't just slap a dozen engines on it to go mach speed because the engine performance drops.  You need an engine capable of mach, which you don't get at Tier 4.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5trwqzhkvos7hds/T4%20Finch.craft?dl=0

Edited May 24, 2016 by Alshain

[AeroGav]

I haven't run a career game since 1.1 but in 1.05 the Juno would supercruise if you used enough of them.  Juno engine makes max power at 1.3 mach and drag certainly used to go up over the transonic region then drop slightly around mach 1.3 before heading up again.

So, build something  with 12 junos and fill the mark 0 nacelles to only 30% ,  climb to 12km subsonic, shallow dive through sound barrier, then slowly ease into a climb again when you hit mach 1.3.  I stopped accepting contracts to make observations above 19km at site X etc.  Whilst it is possible to make one observation per flight in a juno/terrier plane, it takes ages to fly to the observation point, ages to reach max juno altitude and your turn rate up there is non existent.  The actual zoom climb requires exquisite timing and you only get one shot.     Wait till you have Panthers.

[bewing]

Well, I often get wheesleys on contracts. And if you build a cute little plane with a wheesley and two thuds, then you can make long trips and still make a hop to 18km and another to 20km+ at the end of it. Often two of the readings that you have to make are very close to each other, so you can complete a "three observation" contract with two hops. But yes, getting a free panther on a contract is a wonderful thing.  

[Rmack]

This one seem to be flying OK.  The trick is to get the center of mass and and such lined up...well, you know.

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=690721004

 

 

[Alshain]

Looks good, the off center engines may cause you some problems though.  Raising the elevators wouldn't cause any significant issues, but engines that aren't symmetrically in line with the CoM will give you headaches in the long run.  I suggest swapping them.

[AeroGav]

Or add another pair underneath the tailplane to balance the two which are above the centre of mass, and balance the pitch down effect you'll get when throttling up.       Honestly something that minor doesn't matter much on an atmospheric flight.      Kick a set of RAPIERS over to rocket mode at 29km when your control surfaces barely work in an  orgy of oxidizer consumption and you'd know about it !

Of course, them engines are also behind the centre of mass so, that will require moving the wing again.

BTW is the centre of gravity just in front of the join between your two fuel tanks?

If you have as much in front as behind CoM, then handling won't be afffected as fuel burns off.

That's a lot of fuel btw - that thing could circumnavigate Kerbin

[Alshain]

7 minutes ago, AeroGav said:

Honestly something that minor doesn't matter much on an atmospheric flight.

I would beg to differ.  It matters a lot, it's the difference between your plane flying steady or nosing down toward the ground.  I prefer my planes to want to be in the air, not have to hold back on the stick just to keep them there.